They make sense as trade centerpieces but Hanifin is worth quite a bit more than Bennet. Wingers only get traded straight up for Dmen if the winger is the better player and Bennet is not better.

no this will not happen Bennet has been a disappointment in terms of production, a young third line center will not get you a former #5 pick and future #1 dman

Pretty sure that Ron Francis wants a proven scorer for Noah Hanifin, Sam Bennett in his best year 36 points that's not going to cut it.

Bennett is a former #4 pick and a future #1 center. (Normally I would use the word possibly here, but since you can proclaim Hanifin a future #1 Dman I guess I can do it to)

Bennett's game was never going to translate quickly to the NHL, he needs to get a bit bigger and stronger and that was always going to take time.

Add to that the fact that he's slotted in as the Flames #3 center behind Monahan and Backlund, which leaves him with less ice time with much worse wingers and you get a drop off like what we saw this season.

Bennett hasn't proven himself as a stud Top 6 player yet, to be sure. I'm not going to argue that he is until he proves that he is.

Still, last year he was absolutely sidled with Brouwer on his line for a lot of the year, and for anyone who looks at WOWY stats, they know just how heavy of a weight Brouwer was to carry (TLDR: he brought down the statistics of every player he played with, whether forward or defense).

With that in mind, I think Bennett is much better than he has shown to date, but we won't really know until we see him play with decent linemates and decent matchups for an extended period of time (say 3-6 months).

CAR probably asks for a sweetener on this deal, and even then, they probably would prefer to move Faulk out before Hanifin, since they have a better feel for Faulk's upper limit.